


A Feeling Like Falling

by writtenhuman



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Erica-centric, F/F, F/M, Femslash February, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:32:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtenhuman/pseuds/writtenhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erica feels amazing after Derek turns her, except for those times when she really, really doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Feeling Like Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Here's my first foray into Teen Wolf fanfiction, written for Femslash February. It ended up a little more Erica-centric with pre-femslash than anything, but I hope you all still enjoy it.
> 
> Thanks to niyalune on Tumblr for betaing. :)

### Work Text:

 

After Derek turns her, Erica feels _good_. She wears short skirts and low tops and stilettos that kill her feet because she can now—because now she’s not afraid of being looked at, not afraid that she’ll have a seizure and everyone will laugh at her like she’s some spazoid freak. She buys more eyeliner and lipstick than she can reasonably use then spends two whole days figuring out how to make herself look like a fucking sex goddess. She revels in the fact that Stiles, the boy she crushed on for years, has to use all the self-control he has not to take a peek down her shirt.

Sure training with Derek sucks and hunters and Kanimas are more than a little terrifying, but the adrenaline gets her heart pumping terrifyingly fast before the whole werewolf thing kicks in and she’s all claws and ferocity. As long as she gets to feel that powerful, she can deal with the hunters, the running, the fear. And does she feel powerful.

The second week after she’s turned she picks a boy, one of the ones who has been staring at her every day when she passes him in the hall, and corners him after school. The halls are mostly empty as she struts towards him, flipping her hair over her shoulder and grinning. He laughs, nervously. Says something incredibly lame. She returns with lines laced in innuendo, brushing her fingertips down his arm as she talks, until he takes a chance, leaning forward to kiss her.

Erica kisses him back, hard, pushing him back against the wall behind them. It’s a bit clumsy and awkward because honestly she’s never kissed a boy before but he responds enthusiastically anyway. When they’re done she leaves him breathing heavily, leaning against the wall, and walks away, the clicking of her heels echoing around her.

After that, she picks a guy every few days, hunting like a predator. She corners them, kisses them and leads their hands over her body. One time, she catches a boy—Jimmy, she thinks his name is—outside his car. They end up in his back seat, his weight pressing down on top of her as they kiss. He’s not the best at it, but when his hand slips beneath her skirt she lets him and he fumbles around until he gets something that she likes, fingering her until she comes.

Sometimes the boys will come around to see her the next day, but she rejects them flatly and finds herself elated at the dejection on their faces. Never before has she been wanted. Never before has she had the power to reject others, and that authority has her heady with delight.

She thinks about going for one of the girls sometimes, of pulling them into a stall in the girl's bathroom and kissing them, running her fingers through their hair and making them come on her fingers. The girls were always the most vicious to her though, and when she looks at one of them in her class, considers it, she can’t bring herself to do it. At least there’s a certain sick satisfaction in the jealousy that emanates from them now as she walks by.

One boy introduces her to cigarettes, and though they taste atrocious it is another illicit thing that she can do now, that would never have been an option before. She takes to sneaking out of her window at night and wandering down to the old playground near her house. She sits on the swings smoking one cigarette after the next at three in the morning, darkness and a thin gray haze shifting in the air around her.

It’s peaceful, which is good because lately things have been a little crazy. She still likes the power, the ferocity, but at times it’s like she’s falling downwards ever so fast and the adrenaline is building. It’s wonderful, but in the back of her mind there’s that niggling feeling that in just a moment she’ll hit the ground and—crash. She wakes up with nightmares about it. Her body, crashing onto pavement. Her body, shattering into pieces like glass.

But it’s okay. She’s okay.

Then, there’s Boyd.

Boyd is sweet to her. He likes her and thinks she’s sexy too. They flirt for a while, and when Erica kisses him while they’re waiting outside Derek’s old, burnt out house he tells her that he’d like to take her on a date, maybe. That they could go down to the pizza place on Rockwell, or out for ice cream if she wants. She laughs. She likes Boyd, so she says ok. They go on a couple dates when there isn’t anything too life threatening going on and when Erica’s parents are out of town for a weekend she invites him over on Saturday night.

When they start making out she thinks that he’ll be gentler than other boys have been, but then they wolf out and it’s not gentle at all. Not that she’s complaining, of course. Ferocity is good. Passion is good. Still, she’s sore afterwards and when he falls asleep she sneaks out of bed. She sits outside on the back porch in her underwear and bra, smoking. After a while she cries because yeah, she likes being wanted and she likes having sex—the sex is awesome, that really isn’t the problem—but she feels so fucking out of control. The feeling of falling, the idea that one day she’ll take a step forward and suddenly there won’t be ground there to support her anymore, follows her around daily. It chases her into her dreams and finds her drenched in cold sweat when she wakes up halfway through the night to hear Isaac throwing stones at her window, calling her to come down because Derek wants them.

She tries to ignore it when she can.

Boyd takes her out to the movies, buys her popcorn. They go walking down the sidewalk holding hands and she tells him stupid jokes that he laughs at. All the time, they’re kissing, pulling each other to the side to grab quick moments. At some point, though she can’t remember when exactly, she falls a little bit in love with him. Still, when Erica wakes up screaming one day, not with the sensation of falling from some unknown height but with the image of Boyd with an arrow through his head, gashes of an alpha’s claws across his skin and her standing helpless, she panics. It’s ridiculous, she knows, because there is nothing to worry about. Boyd isn’t in danger, and neither is she. There’s no Kanima to speak of anymore, they have a truce with the hunters, and the trouble with the alpha pack finished up weeks ago. The anxiety twisting in the pit of her stomach refuses to retreat though.

When Boyd comes by later, she blurts out, “Boyd, I’m breaking up with you,” before she even knows she’s saying it. It’s not a real solution, but she doesn’t care. She wants to get away from Boyd, to not think about him anymore.

Boyd looks at her for a long time before he replies, “Ok. Ok, I understand.”

She’s not sure if he does understand or if he’s just saying that because he’s Boyd and he wants to understand for her, but since even she doesn’t fully get it she thinks that it’s probably the latter.

She’s smoking two packs a day now. When she goes to train with Derek she can see him scenting the air and looking at her thoughtfully, his signature scowl more of a concerned frown. Isaac and Boyd ignore the scent though and Derek never goes so far as to say anything about it.

Since she’s not with Boyd anymore, she goes back to her boys at school, flirting and teasing. She finds herself less entertained with it this time around. The excitement that would come when they couldn’t seem to keep their hands off her is still there, but it’s become old hat now. She came, she saw, she conquered. Occasionally she still lets one of the more persistent ones talk her into a date at some two star restaurant though. Makes out with them in the backseat of their car afterwards just because she can.

On Friday after school, after most of the kids have left, she’s got Jimmy by the arm, grinning and pulling him out towards his car. He promised to take her to a legitimately classy restaurant with waiters in black suits and everything, and hell if she’s going to miss being wined and dined like that. Halfway down the steps out of the school, however, she hears something--a soft, insistent sound coming from somewhere nearby. She pauses for a moment, listening more closely until the sound comes into focus as someone’s uneven breath. It reminds her of the kind of breathing that people get when they can’t quite stop crying, no matter how hard they try. After that comes the scent of tears, salt and anxiety. Jimmy clears his throat and she realizes that she’s stopped halfway down the stairs. She turns and looks back up at him. She lets go of his arm.

“Never mind,” she says. “Never mind, I’ve got to—”

Jimmy frowns and huffs, pushing past her to get to his car. She ignores him though and turns back, heading into the school. She’s sure she recognizes the scent, but she can’t quite place it. When she finally tracks down the sound to a small, empty classroom she opens the door and it hits her.

Lydia has her fist shoved against her mouth, her eyes red and puffy, eyelashes damp with tears. She jolts at the sound of the door being opened and when she looks at Erica it’s like she’s coming out of a daze.

“I—I’m not—,” Lydia says, but she doesn’t seem to be quite sure on how to finish the sentence and trails off.

The scene seems odd somehow, with Lydia’s hair in wild tangles around her face, as though she’d knotted her fingers in it over and over again, when normally her image is so perfectly constructed. Still Erica thinks that she looks beautiful. She remembers that even before Stiles, there had been Lydia. She had imagined holding Lydia’s hand, Lydia telling her she was beautiful, Lydia kissing her until her lips were swollen and red.

She stands in the doorway for a minute, hesitant, then asks, “Lydia?”

Lydia seems to jolt fully to at the sound of her voice, blinking her way into reality. “Oh. It’s…it’s Erica right?”

“Yeah.” She thinks, offhandedly, that it’s weird that Lydia still isn’t sure of her name even though Erica almost took part in killing her just a few months ago during the witch hunt for the Kanima. She remembers that time with a twinge of guilt--the way she’d imagined dragging her claws across Lydia’s pretty face for that stupid comment she’d made in gym (“Vertigo's a dysfunction of the vestibular system of the inner ear. _She's just freaking out_.”) when honestly Lydia had never been that bad to her. Never made the snide comments with other girls, giggling at the way her body would jerk as a fit came on. Erica had been angry at everyone then, though, whether they had outright rejected her or simply ignored her.

“I just—” Lydia starts, but again she cuts herself off, swallowing. Finally, “I was just heading home.”

Erica is silent as Lydia stands up from the chair she has been collapsed in and the sound of it creaking fills the room. Lydia clears her throat, looking anywhere but Erica, and tries to walk out the door.

Erica stops her, one hand placed on her shoulder, over the dark blue material of Lydia’s blouse. “Do you have your car here?” she asks. Lydia nods shortly, choppily, her breath hitching. “Let me drive you home.” The words are quiet, like the whispers at slumber parties where you find yourself inexplicably afraid of breaking the silence. When Lydia fails to reply, she repeats the words a little bit louder, with a little more strength behind them. “Let me drive you home, Lydia.”

Lydia looks like she wants to argue for a moment but she doesn’t. She nods slowly, opens her purse and digs around until she finds the keys, pressing them into Erica’s palm. Her fingers are still damp from wiping away tears as they brush against Erica’s. “It was Erica, right?” she asks again.

“Yeah, it is.”

Lydia’s car is expensive, small, and purple, which is just the kind of car Erica would expect her to have. She’s almost afraid to turn the key and start it, as if her driving it will magically make the car break down or explode or something. It’s ridiculous, but somehow Erica feels that she—former reject gone dominatrix-ish werewolf girl—shouldn’t be driving the car of someone as together as Lydia Martin. But then, Lydia doesn’t seem all too together at the moment.

Despite her reservations, she forces herself to start the car running.

Once Erica is on the road, she remembers that she doesn’t actually know the way to Lydia’s house. She drums her fingers on the steering wheel, oddly nervous to ask, but before she can Lydia orders her to turn left at the next stop sign. She follows Lydia’s directions until they pull into the driveway of a large, cream colored house. The grass on the front lawn is startlingly green, and Erica wonders if they paid to have it put in or if it just naturally grows like that.

After a moment, she realizes that Lydia has made no move to get out of the car and that they really should head into the house. She unbuckles herself, Lydia belatedly following suit before they get out. Erica keeps the keys firmly clasped in her hand. She should probably give them back now and attempt to find her way home, but she doesn’t. Instead, she follows Lydia into the house, slipping off her shoes in the foyer.

They haven’t said anything to each other since they left the school except for the directions Lydia gave her, but the other girl still has the air of someone rather lost about her, so Erica places the car keys on a nearby table and touches Lydia’s arm gently again, her fingers brushing the spot just above her elbow. “Lydia? Why don’t we get you to bed. You look like you could use some sleep,” she says.

Lydia blinks at her. Nods. “Upstairs. My bedroom is—”

“Alright.” She takes a firmer hold on Lydia’s arm and guides her up the stairs, finding the room that looks to be Lydia’s.

“Come on,” she says when Lydia makes no further motion. “Let’s get you to bed.”

She sits Lydia down on the edge of her bed and kneels in front of her, unlacing her shoes and pulling them off. It feels strangely intimate as she pulls off Lydia’s socks, but Erica ignores the twisting of her stomach to straighten up and help Lydia out of her jacket. She folds it and places it over the chair in the corner of the room. When she looks back at Lydia, the other girl is crying again, staring ahead blankly.

“I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” Lydia murmurs, her voice cracking halfway through the sentence. “I thought everything would be normal again now.”

Erica doesn’t know what to say to that, but she thinks that maybe she understands a little. She helps Lydia under the covers, where she lays quietly, breathing deeply. “I just don’t understand anymore,” Lydia says.

Erica places her hand on top of Lydia’s head, gently running her hand soothingly over Lydia’s hair like she remembers her mother doing for her when she was younger and upset. She still isn’t entirely sure what to say, but she tells Lydia, “I know,” very softly, very quietly. “I know.”

Eventually, Lydia falls asleep with Erica just sitting there, beside her. Erica feels…less as she watches Lydia sleep. Less scared. Less panicked. Less wanting. Less like she’s on the verge of crashing. Less powerful, even, which she finds herself surprisingly okay with.

She brushes her fingers over Lydia’s cheekbones, down her jaw. She hesitates, then leans down to kiss her on the forehead before getting up to go. The oddly insistent calm is still held safely inside her. She figures that if Lydia doesn’t have everything under control—perfect, beautiful, wonderful Lydia—then maybe it’s okay that she doesn’t either.


End file.
